


The Winner Takes it All

by Lucy112235



Category: Escape the Night (Web Series)
Genre: Death, Dolls, Gen, Matt and Lele banter, Matt vs. Lele, Oli and Eva and Joey and Tim are all kind of in the background, Poison, a showdown that should've happened in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 01:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20368405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy112235/pseuds/Lucy112235
Summary: Matt and Lele are voted into the Episode 7 Dollhouse Challenge.And Escape the Night one-shot.





	The Winner Takes it All

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was re-watching Mermaid Tails for the 6389422670974th time, and it occurred to me how awesome it would be if there was a Matt/Lele showdown. Almost every other feud had a big built up and a "winner" of some sort. Tim buried Justine alive, Joey killed GloZell, Alex beat DeStorm, etc. Why didn't we get one for Mele? So I wrote one.
> 
> Also, please don't bombard me if the person you wanted to win didn't. This is just how I imagine it would've gone down. Also, I like both of them.

She sits back and relaxes. She’s fine. It’s Matt. It’s  _ got  _ to be Matt. No one in their right mind would send her in there, especially with Matt Haag being well, Matt Haag. Insisting that they’re all going to die because he’s a dumbass quitter who doesn’t deserve to be here. Plus, Lele’s already been in twice. She’s fine.

“Matt,” Arthur announces.

Of course it is. Who else would it be?

“Of course it is,” she scoffs happily. He’s done. Everyone here can beat him. Except for maybe Joey. But it’s fine. He won’t go in there. Lele won’t. Eva won’t.

Things are working out perfectly.

“And the second name is…”

Lele closes her eyes in triumph. Everything she’s said has paid off. Soon, Matt Haag will be dead. He’ll go up against Tim or Oli and they’ll beat him. Everything will be ok.

“Lele.”

Her name hits her ears like this house is playing a twisted version of-whack-a-mole. Like one of those dramatic documentaries when there’s a huge  _ thomp  _ sound and it’s super dramatic because she’s a goddamn  _ hero.  _ She rescued those bodies from the pool ten minutes ago, and now she’d being sent in to  _ die?  _ Why? 

Gasps come from the whole room. Tim mutters an “oh shit” while Eva clutches her stomach in shock. Joey and Oli both have equally bewildered expressions.

“What the  _ hell?”  _ Lele shouts. “How did  _ I  _ get put on the same level as  _ him?”  _ She points to Matt. The man slumps and glares at her because he’s so high and mighty.

“Oh my god,” Joey manages to stutter. Lele breaks through her initial shock to let her survival instincts kick in. She’ll beat Matt. She has to. And he’ll die, and then she won’t have to look at his pervy face anymore. This was bound to happen at some point. But she’ll take great satisfaction when she beats him.

"Let's get this done, man," sighs Oli.

Oh, she  _ will.  _ “You know, I can’t wait to see you die,” she narrows her eyes at Matt. He does the same to her.

“Classy as always,” he quips, being the pretentious guy that he is. Who does he think he  _ is?  _ He has less class than the rats living down in the basement.

“See you soon,” she could hear Tim whisper to Matt while he hugged him. Why is Tim on Matt’s side? Like, they’re friends, but they were  _ all  _ friends with Matt before tonight. Except for Lele. She never was.

“It’s time,” Arthur reminds them with a slight smile. Why the hell is he smiling?

Begrudgingly, she stands up and walks towards the stairs, giving one last look to her actual friends.

“Good luck, guys!” Oli calls.

“Good luck, Lele!” Eva says, and her friend mouths a “you can do it” in Lele’s direction, and it looks like the first emotion besides anger that Lele has seen from her in the last hour. She doesn’t blame her, of course. It’s Matt’s fault. It’s always Matt’s fault.

They reach the third floor. Neither of them say anything as they walk up. They simply shoot a few glares in each other’s direction every few seconds, but eventually, the get to the room they’re supposed to go in. Arthur walks back down.

“Well?” Lele quips. He raises an eyebrow at her and does nothing. What is she talking about?

“The tablet?” she looks annoyed beyond belief. Like she’s such a saint. 

“Oh,” Matt slides the tablet on to the mantle beside the door. 

She rolls her eyes as the door swings open, revealing the creepiest dolls Matt has ever seen in his  _ life.  _ They look tortured, burned, some almost malnourished (even though that’s impossible for a doll to be). There are hundreds upon hundreds of dolls staring back at them with beady eyes. Like they’re a meal.

Lele gasps and grabs his arm on instinct. Because of fear, probably. But she pulls her arm back and glares at him the moment he notices. 

They walk in at about the same time, and Matt tries to ignore the blood-stained, ghoulish dolls staring them down. There are two dollhouses, and a table between them. On the table lays two glasses of wine, an hourglass, and a note.

Lele snatches it up. Of course she does. 

_ “Both of you take a drink if you want to know more.” _

“What?” Matt sniffs the drink and resists the urge to gag. Lele, however, takes a giant swig of the red liquid, but then looks like she has a mouthful of pop rocks. Like the face GloZell had before she died. The girl manages to swallow, but coughs like she just drank… poison.

_ Is it poison? _

Matt sniffs it again. It sure heck doesn’t smell like  _ wine.  _

“Matt,” Lele crosses her arms, and the way she’s looking at him is like how an exterminator would look at a filthy cockroach. “Seriously. I don’t want to die along with you.”

He shoots her a look and reluctantly takes a small sip from the glass. It’s  _ so  _ bitter. Like blood. Or poison. Or both.

Matt coughs and a note slides under the door. “I wanna read it!” he yells as he sprints there, and somehow he manages to grab it before her.

_ “You just drank poison.” _

_ “Seriously?”  _ Lele slaps a hand against her forehead.

“See, that’s why I didn’t  _ chug it!”  _ Matt remarks. She glares at him and he shoots her a look back before he keeps reading.

_ “There is only one portion of the antidote, and the only way to retrieve it is to search your side of the room for three dolls that best reflect the rhymes in your storybook and place them in their proper setting in the house. When you think you have positioned the dolls correctly, slam your storybook against the table. _

_ Whoever completes the dollhouse first will receive a vial. If you have positioned your dolls correctly, the vial will contain the antidote, and you will be able to save yourself from the poison in your veins. However, if you get it wrong, the vial will contain another dose of poison, and you will die immediately after you drink it. _

_ You have thirty minutes to complete this puzzle before the poison takes effect.” _

Of course. It’s always a puzzle. One more puzzle. One more riddle. Find a key. Unlock a door. Figure out the code. Will this ever end.

_ Should I even try? _

No. He will  _ not  _ give Lele Pons the satisfaction of seeing him die. She’s the worst one here. She should’ve been dead long ago. He’ll make sure she never leaves this room again.

Lele  _ hates  _ nursery rhymes. And dolls. They’re creepy. Like some psycho’s twisted childhood game.

But it doesn’t matter. She’s a fighter. She’ll do whatever it takes to survive. Besides, if she had to go in this challenge, she wouldn’t want to go up against anyone but Matt. He deserves to die. More than Eva or Oli or Tim or Joey, definitely.

So she turns the hourglass over, picks up her book, and begins. Matt does the same.

_ Lizzie Borden took an axe _

_ And gave her mother forty whacks, _

_ And when she saw what she had done, _

_ She gave her father forty-one. _

_ My god.  _ What kind of crazy people read this stuff to her kids? To threaten them?

Whatever. It’s fine. Children murdering their parents. No biggie. There’s two dolls with blood spattered all over them, and a girl with an axe. Lean her over them, and done. Next one.

_ Old Father Longlegs _

_ Can't say his prayers: _

_ Take him by the left leg _

_ And throw him down the stairs. _

_ And when he's at the bottom, _

_ Before he long has lain, _

_ Take him by the right leg _

_ And throw him up again. _

Lele gets it quickly. There’s a doll about three times the height of any other, so she took his left leg and drags his body down the (ridiculously small) doll staircase. 

“Hey Lele?” Matt stammers, his eyes glued to his storybook. “What did you do for you first one?”

She shoots him a look. “Do you really think I’m going to  _ help _ you right now?”

“Of course you aren’t,” he mutters bitterly. 

Matt’s got two. Ok. He’s doing ok.

But he still can’t find the answer to that “general monk” one. 

It’s a general. It died from a fire. Is it supposed to be burned or something? Is that it? There’s no burned dolls here.

“Black and blue…” Lele mutters, clutching her storybook like her life depends on it. “Oh! Here!”

Is it on  _ her  _ side? Is that it? Is that where he’s supposed to look?

Matt tries to sneak to her side of the room. He picks up three dolls, but Lele notices and glares at him.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Aren’t we supposed to share the dolls?” he glares back at her arrogant eyes. 

“No! Search your side!”  _ Man, she’s bossy. _

He doesn’t listen and tries to put the dolls on his side of the room. Lele notices again and punches his arm, probably leaving a bruise.

“Ow!” he complains, looking back at her. She gives a smug look and slaps the dolls out of his hands. 

“Go back to your side,” she orders, like she’s a military leader. Matt rolls his eyes and walks back to his side. He’s close. He’ll get there. And then Lele Pons will be gone for good.

She mutters and frets about her dolls. Lele’s never been into interior design, I mean, who is? But she’s spent the last few minutes swapping in and out her dolls, switching positions, and changing their places. She  _ has  _ to get this right. The Hustler’s normally quite reckless, especially around Matt, but she’s got to take her time and win. He cannot win. How embarrassing (and deadly) would that be? She has her life (and, to a lesser extent, her reputation) at stake.

Maybe Lele’s being a perfectionist. But after two challenges where she didn’t get to fight, she  _ has  _ to win. Jeck, winning is what she does best.

“Are you close?” Matt asks, looking around his dollhouse.

“Why are you asking me this?” Why? He keeps going to her side, asking for help, that kind of thing. He’s been nothing but a douchebag to her and everyone else this whole night. 

“Well, I don’t know, we could, like help each other?” he says. “Though I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the concept.”

“After trying to kill me for the past seven hours, now you want me to  _ help you?” _

“Oh, don’t act innocent.”

“I’m  _ not.  _ But at least I didn’t kill somebody.”

“At least I’m not working with the evil.”

She snorts and doesn’t respond. Whatever Lele says, Matt will probably take it out of context, like the moron he is.

After a long pause, Matt’s annoying voice pops up again. “I… I think I got mine right.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He starts sprinting to the table, yelling “I got it”. Lele’s seconds behind him, but he beats her and slams his book down on the table.

A drawer opens up with a vomit-green liquid. It sure doesn’t  _ look  _ like an antidote, but Matt picks it up anyway, uncorks it, and looks at her.

“I really do think I’m right,” he gives a smile. A disgusting smile in her direction. Is he smiling because he thinks she’s about to die? 

“You know, If you’re wrong, you die,” Lele says flatly, crossing her arms across her chest. He’ll drink the poison. He’ll get what he deserves.

Matt drinks.

_ Shit. _

The moment the liquid enters Matt’s lips, he knows he’s wrong.

He tries to choke it out, but an invisible force seems to be shoving it down his lungs. It burns his esophagus and he collapses. Lele’s face- a mixture of shock and happiness and satisfaction and something else entirely sears the back of his eyelids. It’s searing pain and he can barely see and the world seems to be a blur of dolls and screams and poison and Sierra’s face and Lele’s face and Tim and Justine and Jenna.

_ “Saint Micheal, the archangel…” _

_ “Please! Stop! Please don’t do this!” _

_ “Matt… I’m scared….” _

_ “See you soon.” _

_ “Amen!” _

And it all goes black.

_ Matt’s dead. _

The thought barely enters Lele’s mind before she yells out a triumphant  _ “yes!”  _ to the sky. Matt’s gone. He’s actually gone. He can’t hurt her anymore. He can’t hurt anyone anymore. She’s alive. That little bastard thought that he could kill her, and  _ hah, who’s dead now?! _

A part of her feels a  _ little  _ bad about him dying, but Sierra crosses her mind, her friend who never did anything wrong, and that part of her disappears. Lele can survive now. She’ll make it. He can’t kill her.

Another note.

_ The antidote is attached to the back of the drawer. _

Okay. She still has to drink that antidote or she’ll be dead too, so Lele pulls herself out of her triumphant post-Matt celebration to check the back of the drawer. Sure enough, there’s another vial. It’s kind of like a yellowish-goldish color. Certainly a lot less poisonous-looking than the one Matt drank. Which would make sense.

Lele downs it in a single sip. It runs down her throat like a warm cup of hot chocolate. It’s comforting and it feels like she just drank five energy drinks.

There’s a  _ thump,  _ and the noise reveals itself to be a doll. Certainly the mermaid’s daughter’s doll. It’s quite pretty, with golden hair, a red sash, and bright blue eyes. Lele would probably keep it for herself if it didn’t belong to a murderous mermaid.

Lele grabs it and runs out the door, grinning as she runs downstairs. She’s done it. She’ll survive. Matt Haag is finally dead and gone.

Just like it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> RIP Matt. I'm sorry. It had to be done. 
> 
> What do you think would've happened in this AU? I'm really curious lol


End file.
